1. Field
The present invention relates to a telephony system. In particular, the present invention relates to an apparatus and method for quantifying coverage of an advertising ringtone in a telephony system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Cellular phones are increasingly becoming used for a variety of rich media purposes, such as taking photographs, playing music and performing more complex computational tasks. As such, advertisers are now viewing the mobile platform as a medium not just for displaying adverts, but broadcasting them to a wider group of people.
Third parties, such as advertisers, are increasingly seeking detailed information about phone calls. For example, advertisers may wish to find the effect of their campaigns, and to influence the use of their advertisements.
When a user sends a call to another user's phone, an advertisement can be provided as a ringtone on the call sender's phone, so that the call sender will listen to the advertisement until the call recipient picks up the phone. In exchange for listening to the advertisement the call sender receives a monetary benefit, for example a discount on the call, or free text messages.
An example of prior art that suggests the concept of compensating the call recipient for using their device as an advertising platform is to be found in US Patent Publication US 2008-0167921 A1 (Seo, Mi Jung, et. al. “Advertisement Method Using Ring Tone Providing Service and Advertisement System Thereof, And Computer-Readable Media for Recording Advertisement Method Program”).
Information can be provided to the advertiser on how many times the advertisement has been played, and for how long. However, no coverage information is provided to assess the penetration of the advertisement.
Therefore, there is a need in the art to address the aforementioned problem.